


The Heart of The Forest (Is Dark and Deep)

by KalicoFox



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Gen, Major AU, No Space, Oceans are Forests AU, Zine Submission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-08 22:36:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13468005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KalicoFox/pseuds/KalicoFox
Summary: Keith Kogane is a Guide, tasked with helping caravans navigate the outskirts of the treacherous Forests that make up so much of their world. When his friend and fellow Guide, Shiro, is Taken by the Forest, Keith can't just sit back andwaitfor Shiro to come back. If he comes back.No, Keith is going tomake surethat Shiro leaves the Forest, even if he has to drag him out himself.





	The Heart of The Forest (Is Dark and Deep)

**Author's Note:**

> This was my submission for the Aphelion Zine. It will _not_ be continued.  
>  Based on the tumblr post/comic about the oceans being, instead, massive forests that get darker and bigger the further in you go, housing megafauna and all sorts of other cool stuff.

_The heart of the forest is dark and deep,_

_So mind you treat her well._

_She hears your secrets in the wind,_

_And selects her prey from them._

-Excerpt from ‘The Oral Tradition of Mountain Clan Folklore’, as compiled by Thaddeus Holt.

 

In this world, there are no oceans, no lakes, and no ponds. Water is found solely in streams and rivers; in fog and clouds.

Wherever in our world we would expect there to be bodies of water, instead, there are The Forests.

 

The Forests are deceptive; luring travelers in with the promise of easy game and protection from the sun.

Entire caravans have disappeared into the cool, shadowy depths; the only survivors coming forth weeks or months later, with stories of animals bigger than houses, and strange, fey creatures, half human, half _other_ , that would help or hinder based on some criteria the survivors couldn’t understand.

For the most part, those stories were dismissed out of hand. Only those who lived closest to the outskirts of The Forests knew the truth in the stories. Only those that lived closest cared to follow the old ways that had been handed down through the generations.

\---------

 

Keith watched the caravan pull through the heavy wooden gates of Kirin Village, his eyes darting from face to face as he searched for the guide he’d looked up to since he was a child.

Shiro wouldn’t be at the front. Not this close to the village he’d been hired to take the caravan to. No. He’d be at the back, guarding them against anything that might follow the out of the Forest; ready to either fight or appease as necessary.

The last cart pulled in through the gate and the gatekeeper hesitated for a moment, looking out towards the Forest, then back to the dour faced caravan leader, who scowled heavily and gestured for the man to hurry up and shut the gate.

Keith’s breath caught in his throat.

“Where is he…” he muttered, scanning the crowd again.

“Who’re you looking for?”

Keith gritted his teeth, then, slowly, turned to look at one of the most _obnoxious_ customers that had ever hired his dad to haul their asses from one town to the next.

Lance McClain, of the McClain Mountain clan, was watching him curiously, glancing out at the other caravan as though he could pick out whoever Keith had been looking for.

“A friend.” Keith said shortly, “He usually guides the caravans around here.”

“Really?” Now Lance was looking more intently, craning his head around to peer at the other caravan. “Where is he?”

Keith hesitated. “I don’t know.”

Lance paused. “Oh.”

Keith scowled, then jumped down from the wagon he’d been using as a platform to see over the crowd. “But I’m gonna find out.”

 

It was easy enough for Keith to wind his way through the crowd, but getting close enough to the leader to ask his question was a different story. Three men, two that Keith recognized as the caravan counters for the village, and one that he was _fairly_ sure was the village’s Headman, were talking to him in low voices.

“—nished in the middle of the gorram night,” the caravan leader was grumbling darkly, “‘S what I get for hiring some gorram wet behind the ears Guide from the middle of gorram nowhere. Had to make our way through the Outskirts on our own for the last two days.”

Keith’s breath vanished.

Shiro was missing? He’d been gone for _two days_?

 

“Is that your friend?”

The sudden voice in his ear made Keith jump, snapping him out of the horrified spiral his brain had gotten stuck in.

“What?” he managed, looking over to see Lance, standing at his shoulder and watching the caravan leader and headman with an inscrutable look on his face.

“The person they’re talking about. The Guide who went missing,” Lance said impatiently, keeping his eyes on the headman who was hissing at the guild leader to lower his voice, “Is that your friend?”

“Yeah,” Keith replied,  forcing the word out of his dry mouth and then instantly regretting it. “I gotta… I need to…”

He spun around, ignoring the befuddled looking Lance, and strode back toward where several of the wagons from the Kogane Caravan were parked, waiting for repairs to be made, purchases to be bought, and this latest caravan to stop through. The main wagon was in the middle, brightly colored roof shining in the sun, inviting any and all passersby to stop in for a deal.

Keith beelined for that wagon, threw open the door and stormed inside.

“They’re saying that Shiro vanished,” he announced abruptly, dodging around the comfortable chairs that were in the public part of the wagon and ducking into the back area where he and his father lived.

“What?” Grant Kogane, caravan leader, Guide, and father, startled, looking up in consternation as his son stormed into the part of their wagon that was his room and, from the sound of it, started tossing stuff around.

“I mean,” Keith said, “He’s probably not. He’s probably fine. It happens all the time, right? Guides go missing for a couple of days, then wind up back where they started, or in the nearest caravan or village, and it’s _fine_.”

The stress on the last word made Grant pause.

“Shiro? Your friend from Beros Village?”

“Yeah. He was supposed to be guiding the latest caravan in, but then Iverson said that he vanished halfway through.” Keith paused, “Iverson’s caravan is here, by the way.”

“Yeah thanks,” Grant said distractedly, “I hadn’t realized Shiro was old enough to be Guiding by himself already.”

Keith stuck his head out of the curtain separating his room from the rest of the domestic space and stared disbelievingly at his father. “Really? Shiro’s been guiding caravans solo for the last two years. The Holts were only going with him because he was training the youngest.”

Grant leaned back in his chair, his face thoughtful. “Huh…”

“So anyway, I’m going to head to Beros ahead of schedule and see if Shiro’s back there already. If he is, I’ll wait there until you guys catch up. If he isn’t then at least they’ll know that he didn’t make it in with the rest of the caravan.”

Grant raised one eyebrow, “And that’s all you’ll do if he’s not there when you get there? Just… Let the Holts know and then wait for us?”

The skepticism in his voice was obvious, and, judging by the pause in the rummaging sounds from behind the curtain, Keith heard it loud and clear.

“Yes?”

Not for the first time, Grant mourned his son’s inability to lie convincingly. If he _had_ been able to lie, then Grant would have been able to go to bed tonight, secure in the knowledge that once his son made it to Beros, he’d stay with the Holts, no matter what he found.

But.

He knew Keith, just like he knew himself.

If Shiro wasn’t back at the village, then Keith would head straight into the Forest in the hopes of finding him before he wandered too far. If he was lucky, he’d find the man. If he wasn’t, then Keith would show up a couple of days later, dazed and confused, back at Beros. If he was _really_ unlucky, the Forest would swallow him whole, to join the ranks of all the Guides before him who’d ventured too deep.

And if Grant refused to let him go, Keith would disappear into the night. He really was just like his mother in his stubbornness.

“All right,” Grant said heavily, and shoved his chair back so that he could get to his feet. “I’ll send a bird to Beros letting the Holts know what’s happened and that you should be there in a few days. Make sure you check with the postmaster before you go to see if anything needs to go that way.”

“Got it.” Keith hesitated for a moment, then poked his head around the curtain again. “Thanks dad.”

Grant waved him off. “Yeah yeah, just don’t get yourself killed. It’d take too long to train up a new guide.”

Keith grinned, and vanished back into his room, leaving Grant to go track down this village’s birdkeeper.

Setting out was simple enough; his sword was his constant companion, so all he’d really had to do was stuff some clothes into a bag and swipe enough food to tide him over in the unlikely event that he wasn’t able to find anything in the Forest. Nobody came to see him off, and honestly, Keith preferred it that way. Big displays of emotion made him want to hide more than anything else and his dad knew it, so Keith easily slipped out of the gates without anyone else being the wiser.

Unlike Beros, Kirin Village was actually set decently far back from the Forest; it was a good four hours on foot before Keith gratefully stepped into the cool green shade of the outskirts of the forest. Instantly, it was a completely different environment. The air was cool and moist, filled with the scent of green, growing things, and the sound of birds calling back and forth between the trees. Something inside Keith eased as his feet sank into the thick moss that covered the path, and he took a moment to just stand there, soaking it in.

 

Still, he couldn’t stand there forever. He had places to be, and so Keith started walking; following a path that, even though a caravan had come through a few hours ago, looked as overgrown as a road that hadn’t been traveled in weeks, or even months.

 

That, however, wasn’t a surprise, and Keith made good use of the machete he’d borrowed from the Kogane caravan’s supplies.

 

Technically, it was every traveller’s duty to help keep the roads and paths clear. However, in practise that task usually fell to the guides. In part because they traveled the most, and in part because they knew where the roads should be, rather than where the Forest was trying to direct them. Marks left on tree trunks, stones left just so, and even plants growing certain ways were all signs left from one guide to the next, telling those who would come after them where the road should lead, and what dangers to look for. Some signs were even short messages, little things, like complaining about a sudden rainstorm, or idiot caravan leaders who didn’t want to listen to the advice they’d paid for, or rejoicing about found caches of food or water.

 

Being a guide was an odd life, and it attracted an odd sort of person, but Keith had been raised in a caravan and his dad had trained him well, and now he couldn’t imagine living any other way. Trying to live surrounded by walls and people and rules… it seemed, Keith thought, profoundly unnatural.

Somewhere behind him, a twig snapped and someone swore.

Keith paused, half turning to glance back down the path as his hand drifted over to rest on the hilt of his sword. It wasn’t unlikely that there would be other travelers on the path, but at the same time desperation could make even the wisest (or most cowardly) bandit brave the Forest in the hopes of finding an easy mark.

A flash of blue caught his eye, then yellow and green that didn't quite fit with the foliage of this part of the forest, and Keith swallowed a curse.

"Lance I swear to the Guardians that if that's you you are going to regret ever hiring us to drag your ass through the Forest!"

Any hint of movement vanished for a moment, then a voice, newly familiar, but just as unwelcome as Lance's echoed up the road to him.

“Who’s Lance?”

Gritting his teeth, Keith stomped back down the path.

“Really?” He demanded,  “Are you kidding me right now? Do you _honestly think_ that I wouldn’t know your fucking _voices_ after hauling your butts all over the three regions? _Really?!?_ ”

Hunk Garret, childhood friend of the _bane of Keith’s existence_ smiled sheepishly at Keith as he rounded the curve that had kept the two of them out of sight, then sobered as he got a good look at the look on Keith’s face and pointed hurriedly at Lance.

“It was all his idea, I swear. I only came so that he wouldn’t get killed by a wild animal or something.”

"Yeah, I'll just bet," Keith growled, glaring past him at the far-too-smug-to-be-allowed Lance.

For a moment he considered sending them back, or even better, taking them back himself. But then there’d be yelling, and he’d lose even _more_ time, and honestly, he just didn’t _care_ that much. Lance and Hunk had left the caravan while it was in a village; that alone absolved the caravan of any responsibility to them, and honestly, it’s not like they hadn’t had stupid Mountain folk vanish into the forests before, so Keith’s dad probably wouldn’t think too much about it.

Sighing, Keith looked them over, praying that at least _one_ of them had had the presence of mind to actually pack for the trip.

To his surprise though, _both_ of them were in sturdy clothes, with satchels that looked stuffed full slung over one shoulder and quivers slung over the other.

Which drew his attention to…

“Can you even use that?”

His voice was flat as he stared at the longbow dangling easily in Lance’s hand. The damn thing was almost as tall as he was, and it wasn’t even strung, so honestly, Keith felt that it was well within his rights to wonder.

Lance, on the other hand, obviously didn’t agree.

“Of course I can! I’m the best bowman in the entire McClain clan!”

One eyebrow arched skeptically, and Hunk jumped to his defense. “No really, it’s crazy. He even went to the Windfall tournament last year.”

“I didn’t place though,” Lance said, glancing down at the bow in his hand, and Keith’s other eyebrow joined the first in his hairline.

The Windfall tournaments were _Guide_ tournaments. A time when guides from all over would get together and show off. For someone from a _mountain_ clan, who’d never seen a forest up close in their life to be invited…

“All right.” Keith finally said, “I’m just gonna assume that you can use that, then.” He nodded at Hunk’s crossbow, and Hunk grinned, hefting the enormous weapon and patting the stock affectionately.

“Yup! This baby’s got me through more than one scrape with bandits on the road!”

“Well let’s just hope bandits are all we’ll have to deal with,” Keith muttered darkly, and ignored the way that Lance perked up, a smile starting to spread across his face as Keith turned to start heading down the road.

“Come on if you’re coming!” he called back.

“Coming!” Lance shouted, hurrying to catch up, “Keep your mullet on, jeeze.”

Hunk gaped incredulously after the two of them. “Wha—? But… you were supposed to send us _back_!”

“That’d take too long,” Keith said shortly, “And I’m not sending this idiot back without a guide. He’d get both of you Taken. You can stay in Beros while I look for Shiro if he isn’t there, and if he is then we’ll just head back to Kirin.”

 

Two days later, Keith was almost wishing that his honor as a Guide didn’t matter to him quite as much as it did.

Not only did Lance _never shut up_ , but he wanted to know about _everything_ . Anything he wasn’t asking questions about, he was _talking_ about, and if he wasn’t _talking_ about it, then he was _touching_ it. It was like dealing with a _toddler_ , but unlike with a toddler, Keith couldn’t just stick a gag in his mouth and dump him in the nearest wagon.

For one, there weren’t any wagons.

For two, the last (and only) time Keith had tried to gag him, Lance had ended up ten minutes off the path and Keith had nearly had a Guardians forsaken heart attack.

 

Hunk, on the other hand, was practically a saint. He didn’t touch anything, he distracted Lance whenever Keith felt his sword hand start twitching, and best of all, _he knew how to cook_.

After living for _way_ too long on the kind of meals that only a widower who’d never learned how to cook could make, Keith had come to appreciate the cooking of anyone _but_ himself. The fact that Hunk managed to make something like a hot pot out of the stuff Keith had foraged from the areas around the path as they walked just made it that much better.

“What about this?” Lance demanded, pointing at a stick that lay straight across the path, “What’s this mean?”

Keith sighed and reminded himself for the umpteenth time that no, he _couldn’t_ just tie the ignorant Mountain kid to a tree and leave him.

“It’s a stick.” he said flatly, “it probably fell out of a tree. It doesn’t _mean_ anything.”

Lance scowled, twirling his bow idly. “This is so dumb. I bet you’re just making ‘Guide Markers’ up. How can a stick and a rock and a flower mean _anything._ ”

Keith twitched, then glared. “Just because you’re _blind_ doesn—”

“What about this?” Hunk interrupted, pointing at something just off the Forest side of the path.

Keith glanced over, ready to declare something, yet again, not a Marker, then paused and looked again.

“Huh,” he said absently, his eyes flicking over the twining vines and careful placement of small river pebbles amongst them.

“Is it one?” Hunk asked, and Keith nodded absently, counting how many stones were placed together and how many were separate and ignoring the fist pump and low ‘yesss’ as Hunk added another tally to his score.

 

_‘Missing Guide; Small bird of the den has entered to retrieve. 13th day of Strawberry Moon.’_

The thirteenth day of Strawberry… Keith frowned. That was only four days ago. About when Shiro had been Taken.

‘Small bird of the den’ was a sign he hadn’t seen before, either, and he’d been _sure_ that he knew the signs of all the Guides that ran this area.

For a moment he just studied the Marker, cudgeling his brain as he tried to figure out if he was missing anything.

When it hit him, he swore, turned around, kicked the nearest tree, and swore again even more viciously.

“Woah!” Lance exclaimed, watching him with wide eyes. “Bad news?”

“That stupid, irresponsible, _reckless_ —” Keith cut himself off, resisting the urge to start trying to strangle someone who wasn’t even there.

“What happened?” Hunk asked, studying the Marker as though he’d be able to glean some of the meaning out of the collection of pebbles and vines.

“Pidge went into the Forest,” Keith snapped, “she’s not even a full Guide yet, so I’m not familiar with her sign, but ‘of the Den’ is the Holts, so ‘Small Bird’ must be her. Why the _hell_ would she be so _carele_ —oh shit.”

Keith stilled abruptly, pieces clicking into place one after another with an almost terrifying ease.

“Matt was Taken too. That’s literally the only reason she would have gone in.”

“Matt?”

The concern in Lance’s voice made Keith glance over, checking distractedly on him, then Hunk.

“Her brother. Pidge _adores_ him. If there was _anything_ that would make her ignore literally _every warning_ she’s ever gotten, it’d be Matt being taken.”

“How long ago?” Hunk asked, staring concernedly into the Forest, “Did she say?”

“Only a couple of days,” Keith said, running his hand through his hair, “About the same time Shiro vanished, apparently.”

“And these are the same Holts that we’re supposed to be going to go check in with?” Lance asked, glancing from the Marker to Keith and back again, and Keith gritted his teeth.

Right now he wished more than ever that he could just ditch the two Mountain Folk and head straight into the Forest, tracking the fledgling guide down so that he could yell at her until he felt better.

He wouldn’t make her go back. Having someone else around who knew what they were doing would be too valuable to get rid of. Even someone who only _partially_ knew what they were doing would be better than dragging around a pair of Mountainfolk who couldn’t tell their asses from holes in the ground.

But he couldn’t drag them into the Forest proper, no matter _how_ badly he wanted to charge into the Forest after Pidge.

“Yeah,” he grunted, “The same. Come on.”

And, hitching his satchel to a more comfortable position, Keith turned to keep walking down the path.

“Wait what?!” Lance yelped, and Hunk made a small, disbelieving noise. “You’re just going to walk away? I thought this Pidge or whoever is your friend! You can’t just leave her in there on her own!”

Something in Keith flared, bright and hot, and he wheeled around.

“So what am I supposed to do?” He demanded, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, “Go after her? Thanks to you two, I _can’t._ I have a _responsibility_ , dammit, and I can’t just leave you two on the road by yourselves.”

“So take us with you!” Lance shouted, flinging one hand out toward the depths of the forest, “Take us with you! We can _help_ ! Sure, we might not be Guides, but I’m the best shot in the entire Winding Mountains, and Hunk isn’t much worse! Seriously, I get that this is your job and everything, but would it _kill_ you to admit that maybe we have something to offer? That maybe we could _help_ , if you just told us what to do, rather than acting all high and mighty?”

“Seriously,” Hunk added, “we might not be Guides, but we aren’t helpless. We can _help._ ”

Keith stared at them, stunned.

“You… want to help?”

“ _Duh!”_

“But… _why?”_

“Well let’s see,” Hunk said, his voice only a little sarcastic as he held up a hand so that he could tick points off on his fingers. “It’s the right thing to do, we sort of forced you to bring us along in the first place, which, in hindsight, wasn’t the coolest thing we could have done, you’re obviously really worried, and, oh yeah, _it’s the right thing to do._ ”

Keith stared some more.

“It’ll be dangerous,” he tried.

Hunk nodded, settling his crossbow a little more firmly in his grasp as something in Lance’s face turned hard.

“The Forest isn’t the only place on the planet that has a monopoly on danger,” he said, shifting his grip on his longbow. “We’ll be fine as long as we’re careful.”

“You might die,” Keith told them, his brow furrowing with confusion.

“But we might not.” Lance countered as Hunk paled slightly.

“It’s too—”

“Guide Kogane,” Hunk interrupted, and the unexpected formality made Keith snap his mouth shut. “I think by now you can tell that Lance’s mind is made up. All that’s left is your answer. Will you Guide us?”

 

Keith gaped at him, then groaned and slapped one hand over his face.

“I am going insane. My dad is going to _murder_ me.”

“Does that mean yes?” Lance asked, and Keith almost missed the thread of anxiety in his voice.

“Yeah, fine. Okay.” he replied, his voice muffled. Then he raised his head and pinned the two of them with his fiercest glare. “But you are going to listen to me, and do _exactly_ what I say, understand?”

Grinning broadly, Lance saluted him with his bow, nearly braining Hunk with the opposite end as he nodded seriously.

“We understand.”

Keith glared at the two of them, shifting his satchel to a slightly more comfortable position and making sure that nothing would keep him from being able to draw his sword easily.

“All right, fine. Once you get off the path, the rules change. It gets dark, fast, the trees get a lot bigger, and so do the animals. There’ll be streams and rivers, and I think the closest creek should still be in roughly the same place, so we’ll head toward that and follow it while we look. If you see anything edible bring it to me first; some of the stuff that will kill you deader ’n dead looks identical to stuff that’s fine to eat.”

 

For a moment three of them stood there, silent and watchful, then Keith took a deep breath and adjusted a couple of  the vines on Pidge’s Mark, adding three more pebbles and propping one of the larger white flowers up to face the sun.

 

_‘Gold Wood has followed. Two Blind followed. 17 Strawberry.’_

 

“Come on,” he said, and, Hunk and Lance following carefully, stepped off the road.

The Forest didn’t change suddenly. The sun didn’t vanish, and the trees didn’t close in. If they looked back they could still see the road. The only change was that the air felt somehow, indefinably, different, and that was enough to have all three of them on edge.

“I thought it was supposed to get dark fast?” Lance asked, his voice quiet and tense as he peered around.

“It _was_ ,” Keith gritted out, absently checking that his sword could be easily drawn. “It has every other time I’ve had to go in! I’m not sure _what’s_ changed.”

Despite their suspicions, everything continued smoothly. The trees stayed a reasonable distance apart, the air stayed light and cool and vaguely damp, and the birds and bugs kept at their eternal quest for food or mates.

It was so incredibly unnerving that Keith almost sobbed with relief when suddenly, with an abruptness that felt like the Forest was doing it on purpose, the sun seemed to vanish, plunging them into a dim, green, twilight.

Trees rose around them, huge and dark and glorious, and one by one the three of them realized that they were being watched. Not by anything as mundane as human eyes, no; the gaze felt heavier. Alien. And, oddly enough, that same heaviness made it feel as though they were being judged by something that was sure it held their lives in whatever appendages it had.

Something inside Keith bristled, desperate to find whatever it was that thought it had the right and _prove_ to it that it was wrong; but something else held him back, whispering warnings about haste into the back of his mind. In the end, all he could really do was finger the hilt of his sword, itching to draw it but unwilling to do so in case it provoked whatever was in the trees.

Hunk inhaled, too sharply to be normal, too quietly for it to be a gasp, and when Keith turned it was to see an enormous feline shape prowling forward out of the shadows, lithe and confident as it’s muscles rippled under it’s tawny golden coat.

For a moment, he panicked, his mind going blank with fear, and when the feline glanced at him on its way past he got the distinct impression that it was _laughing_ at him. That alone was enough to jolt him out of it, and he gritted his teeth as the feline’s tail twitched once, twice, and then stilled.

“ _Keith!_ ” Lance hissed, his knuckles white where they clutched his bow, _“What the fuck?!_ ”

“I don’t _know!”_ Keith hissed back, and, moving slowly so that _hopefully_ he wouldn’t startle the feline, he started to draw his sword.

Somewhere behind him something growled, low and furious, and Keith froze as all of the blood drained from Lance’s face.

“There’s another cat,” Keith guessed in a whisper.

Lance nodded slowly, his eyes wide and focused on something above and behind Keith’s left shoulder.

For a second, Keith stood there, his eyes flickering around the small clearing as he tried to come up with some way out of the situation.

Hunk was backed up against a tree, cornered by the golden cat.

There was another cat, directly behind him, and Lance was being useless as always, so he couldn’t count on—

Movement flickered in the corner of his eye, and Keith swore, long and vicious in his head as he managed to pick out the outline of _yet another_ cat slipping from tree to tree in a path that would take it directly behind Lance.

“Lance,” he breathed quietly, trying to not make any sudden movements that might set off the cat behind him, “You’ve got a friend.”

Lance gulped. “Where?”

“About seven o’clock. On my count, we’re gonna switch, okay?”

Huh… he hadn’t known that it was possible for Lance to pale any further.

“What?”

“We’re gonna switch.” Keith hissed, “On three.”

Lance swallowed hard, but his grip shifted on his bow and he nodded once, his eyes hardening as he mentally prepared himself.

“One.” Keith murmured, flexing his fingers around the hilt of his sword.

“Two.” His eyes never left the shadow in the trees.

_“Three!_ ” The word practically tore itself from his throat, and Keith lunged forward, ripping his sword from its sheath as he headed low past Lance.

Lance was practically a blur, pulling an arrow and nocking it in one smooth movement that had him aiming past where Keith had just been standing.

Twin roars shook the forest, too loud to be natural, and Keith stumbled, dropping his sword as he clapped his hands to his ears.

The pain was incredible, and the noise was indescribable, and when it finally died away Keith was crouched on the ground, eyes clenched shut as he waited for teeth and claws to tear into him.

 

And waited.

 

When something large and damp and rough scraped his hand, he yelped, jumping to his feet.

The cat, huge and beautiful, with fur the color of the sun seen through smoke, watched him calmly, green eyes cool and evaluating.

“This is amazing,” Hunk breathed, and Keith glanced over, then looked again, sure that his eyes were playing tricks on him.

But no, he actually _was_ seeing Hunk scratching the big, golden cat under its chin. Judging by the thunderous purr, the cat was quite enjoying it.

“Lance!” Keith yelped, realizing abruptly that he hadn’t heard the McClain heir since they’d tried to take out the cats.

“Here!” Lance called back cheerily, “I’m fine, and this beauty is _amazing_.”

The last half of his sentence was crooned, and Keith turned, half dreading what he was fairly sure he’d see.

It was, somehow, worse.

Instead of Lance buried in fur up to his elbows, petting and scratching the cat like Keith had thought, the cat was actually wrapped around _Lance_ , curled in a lazy crescent that left Lance squarely between its front paws. Lance was completely unconcerned by this and was patting and smoothing the blue-grey fur of its muzzle, dropping compliments and kisses indiscriminately.

Keith gaped, then turned to stare accusingly at the russet cat.

“I am not doing that.” he said flatly.

The cat didn’t move, only a slight twitch at the tip of its tail betraying that it had heard him at all.

“Go on, man,” Lance urged, and Keith glanced over to see him watching, one hand resting casually on the muzzle of the cat.

“It’s amazing,” Hunk put in from the other side, “like meeting your best friend again.”

Keith scowled, then sighed and moved forward, stretching out his hand to touch the cat.

The cat’s lip curled, baring one gleaming white fang as its green eyes narrowed, and Keith paused, frowning at it.

“What?” he asked, “I thought this is how it was supposed to go! You attack us, we pet you, and suddenly we’re all buddy buddy good friends, sit around a campfire and sing!”

Stifled snickering from Lance’s direction made his scowl deepen, but Keith didn’t take his eyes off the cat in front of him.

“Let’s try this again.” he said, and took a deep breath, unconsciously falling into the nearly sing-song cadence of recitation. “I am Keith Kogane, Guide for the Kogane caravan, who signs his Markers as Gold Wood. I honor the Forest, and tread not where uninvited. Let me be known to you, and you to me, that we might speak on equitable terms.”

For a moment, the cat was as still as a stone, then, in one sinuous movement, it stood and came forward, twining around him once before stalking over to one side of the clearing and stopping, obviously waiting for them to follow.

One after the other, the other cats joined it, watching the three humans with calm, intelligent eyes.

“What was _that?_ ” Hunk hissed at Keith, who shrugged uncomfortably.

“It’s just an old Guide’s rote,” he replied, “My dad taught it to me, and his dad taught him, I guess. It’s supposed to show that we mean no harm; that we’re trustworthy.”

Hunk eyed him skeptically, but let the subject drop as Lance crossed the clearing to join the cat that had claimed him.

“Come on,” Keith sighed, and, almost reluctantly, the two of them headed over to join Lance.

Before they could reach them, however, each of the cats stood up, turned tail, and wound their way through the trees.

Keith groaned.

“I hate this game…” he grumbled, and, hesitantly, Hunk patted him gently on the shoulder.

“It could be worse, couldn’t it?” Lance asked, peering after the cats, “I mean, at least they didn’t eat us.”

“Yet,” Keith said darkly, and as one they followed the cats deeper into the Forest.

Tracking the cats was surprisingly easy. They never went too far ahead, and if they lost track of them, one or another of them would show up not long after, fur glimmering in the dim light and eyes glinting with hidden amusement.

It got to the point that even Lance, enamored as he was of the grey-blue beast, was starting to get irritated.

And then, it got worse.

It started when Hunk paused, frowning as he cocked his head from one side to the other.

“Keith?” he asked, “is it supposed to be this quiet?”

Keith paused mid-step, his hand shooting out and grabbing Lance to stop him as well, and listened hard.

The sound of dead silence, only broken by the rustling of leaves as the soft breeze blew through them, made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

“No,” he murmured, “it’s not. There’s something out there.”

Almost as soon as the last word left his mouth the sound of something crashing through the underbrush and bushes filled the air, and Keith’s sword nearly _leapt_ into his hand with how fast he drew it.

Faces set and knuckles white around the grips of their respective bows, Hunk and Lance stepped back, letting Keith cover them as they waited for whatever was in the trees to reveal itself.

They didn’t have to wait long; with an enormous crashing sound and a terrified yelp, someone, or maybe some _thing_ , crashed through the brush and nearly ran directly into Keith; a quick evasive maneuver barely saving him from skewering them with his sword.

Lance and Hunk stared.

Whatever it was looked just like a human, with dark skin and pale hair, and—

Almost as one the two of them whirled around, blushing furiously.

It was definitely female, and just as definitely wasn’t wearing a shirt.

Keith, meanwhile, was more focused on the _other_ half of the being. Mostly since the other half in _no_ way resembled a human.

From the waist down, it was as though a deer were standing there, with long legs and small, graceful hooves, and the almost faded dappling of a fawn that had nearly reached adulthood.

“You have to run!” The woman? Deer? panted, looking wildly back over her shoulder, “They were right behind me, you have to go _now!_ ”

“Too late,” a new voice, dark and malevolent, fairly purred with amusement as several figures melted out of the concealment of the trees. “Well, well, well, princess, you’ve certainly fallen far.”

“Be _silent_ , witch!” she spat back, spinning on her hind hooves so that she landed squarely in between Keith and the figure who had spoken, “These Outlanders have _nothing_ to do with our conflict. I demand that you allow them to leave peacefully!”

Keith glanced around, silently tallying up how many of the figures there were, and winced. They were completely surrounded, and he _still_ couldn’t see them well enough to see if they were armed or not.

“Keith…?” Hunk murmured, his voice pitched low, and Keith twitched, flicking his fingers back at Hunk to try and make him shut up.

“Allow three Outlanders to leave, when they’ve wandered willingly into the our Forest?” the ‘witch’ was saying, “I think not. We could always use more hands, and Outlanders are fragile enough that they always need replacing.”

The deer girl glanced back over her shoulder, blue eyes sad. “I’m so sorry about this,” she whispered, then planted her hooves and raised her arms on either side of herself, pink light gathering in her downturned palms.

“If you want them, _come and get them._ ”

Purple light, edged with black and somehow sickly looking, gathered around the figure of the ‘witch’, and nearly as one every other figure in the clearing leapt at them.

 

It was odd fighting alongside bowmen when usually his father wielded a pair of trench knives to devastating effect, but at the same time, Keith couldn’t find any reason to complain. More than once he heard a _‘swish-thunk’_ from alarmingly close by, only to turn and find an enemy down with an arrow or a bolt lodged in their throat or through one of the eye holes of the mask they were wearing.

After the first couple of times, he stopped turning to look, trusting Lance and Hunk to watch his back as he did his best to keep any of the figures from getting close to either of them, or the deer woman.

It was exhausting, but something in Keith was cheering in vicious glee with every one of them he cut down.

Light filled the air to one side, whips of black and purple and pink and gold lashing from one side of the tiny clearing to the other and leaving smoking divots in the ground wherever they hit.

The deer girl was almost dancing through the fighting, lashing out with light with one hand, and deflecting bolts of dark-light with the other. It wasn’t until Keith had to dive out of the way of one of her deflections, yelping at the feeling of singed skin from the close call, that she seemed to realize that the humans were still around and started to angle the deflections more purposefully.

One after another, the masked enemies were cut down and shot down and blasted with light, but no matter how many of them fell, it seemed like more were always ready to take their place. It was hard, the fight was dragging on, and Keith’s sword had never felt heavier. Still, he gritted his teeth, adjusted his grip, and fought on.

No matter what, he wasn’t going to fail.

He wouldn’t be captured. Hunk and Lance would be safe.

They would find Shiro, and then they would get _out_ of the Forest.

And then, Keith swore silently, he would never _ever ever_ go more than ten minutes off the path into the Forest, because this was _insane._

“Fuck,” someone swore from behind him, swiftly followed by a _‘THWACK’_ of something long and thin hitting something solid, “Keith, I’m out of arrows!”

“So reuse some!” Keith shouted back, straining against the weight of another sword.

“Oh thanks, that’s so helpful!” Lance snarled over the sound of another _‘Thwack!’_ “I already _did_ that.”

“You’re doing,” Hunk grunted over the sound of his crossbow nocking a bolt, “really well hitting them with your bow though.”

“Of course I am,” Lance agreed, “I have practice. But that’s be—”

Something glinted in the air, and, abruptly, the masked figure Keith had been fighting dropped, a dagger buried to the hilt in the side of its head.

Keith gaped back in the direction the weapon had come from, then almost completely forgot about it when what he was seeing finally started making sense.

There, watching from in between the trees, were the cats that had led them this far. But now they had been joined by two more; one dappled with black spots over an odd, green tinted coat (although, that might just have been the light,) and the other blacker than the darkest night.

As one, their eyes flashed and they opened their mouths, but what emerged wasn’t a sound. It was more like a _feeling_ . The feeling of spring, and summer and fall and winter; of lightning storms and typhoons; of droughts and famines and, above all of that, the feeling of _time_. Passing ceaselessly and uncaringly.

Every masked figure in the small clearing dropped like a puppet with their strings cut.

“What?!” The ‘witch’ shrieked, the purple light abruptly vanishing, “How could you— No Galra has _ever_ —”

For a moment she paused, speechless, then she muttered something, turned, and vanished into the shadows between the trees.

“You didn’t say you were _Paladins!_ ” the deer woman said, turning to stare accusingly at them, and Keith reflexively scowled at her.

“Forget about that a second,” Hunk said, “Where the heck did that knife come from?”

“That was me,” a new voice said, and everyone turned just in time to see a short person with close trimmed hair and glasses slide out of one of the nearby trees to land gracefully on the ground. “Still making other people save your butt, Keith?”

Keith flushed, “That was _once_ , Pidge, when I was _six._ ”

“Which once?” another voice said amusedly as a tall man with a shock of white hair stepped out from behind the cats, “The once with that weird monkey? Or the once with the watersnake? Or maybe it was the once with th-”

“Shiro stop!” Keith yelped, face flaming, then, “SHIRO!”

Keith crossed the small clearing in a few steps and threw his arms around the man’s shoulders, hugging him tight and not caring that he’d dropped his sword.

“You asshole, I thought you said I’d never have to worry about you being Taken?”

Shiro chuckled, but hugged him back, then shrugged as Keith stepped away. “Well, you know. The best laid plans of Guides and Mountain folk and all that.”

“Great,” Lance interrupted, “you found your friend, we found whoever _that_ is” he pointed at Pidge, “and we got into a pretty awesome fight. Can we go now?”

“Yeah,” Keith said, not bothering to hide his exhaustion as he went to retrieve his sword and clean it off.

“But you can’t leave!” the deer girl said, her eyes wide and panicked, “You’ve awakened the Guardians! You’re Paladins, and now that Haggar knows that you exist, Zarkon soon will as well! You have to stay and fight, or he’ll tear the entire Forest apart looking for you, and them!”

She pointed at the cats, now lounging carelessly amongst the trees, and Keith frowned.

“What do they have to do with us? Or whoever this Zarkon is? We’re Outlanders. We don’t mess with the Forest, and the Forest shouldn’t mess with us. That’s the deal!”

The deer girl shuffled her hooves uncomfortably, glancing around like she was hoping that _someone_ would come help her explain, then she sighed.

“The Guardians don’t choose denizens of the Forest, and they rarely awaken. The fact that the five of you have all been chosen, and that you’re all here at all is… well, frankly, it’s incredible. I would say impossible, but…”

“We aren’t staying,” Keith said firmly, “We can’t. We have friends and family, and responsibilities out there! We can’t just get caught up in some Forest conflict that we know nothing about!”

“I’m going to stay.”

Keith whipped around, but his protest died on his lips when he saw the serious look on Shiro’s face. The set, stubborn look on Pidge’s was all-too familiar as well, and as he looked at Hunk and Lance, his heart sank.

“None of you want to leave, do you?”

“We can’t,” Hunk said softly. “Can’t you feel her? She needs you.”

He gestured over toward the cats, toward where the russet cat was watching Keith with calm green eyes, and Keith shook his head.

“No.”

He took a step back, then another. “No. This is insane. There is no _feeling_ , no link, and no way that we can all just _stay here and—_ ” 

Something cut him off; a feeling like home and hearth and barely concealed hunger, and it was so _familiar_ that the breath whooshed out of him, making him sit down hard on the ground as he fought to breathe.

When he could speak again, he looked up, meeting each of their eyes in turn, from the deer girl’s hopeful blue, to Shiro’s steady black, to the russet cat’s green.

“All right,” he said heavily. “We’ll stay. We’ll help. But first, we’re going to send some messages.”

 


End file.
